Luckypants

Still a glaring omission on many more upmarket cars too, such as the I-Pace or Ioniq 5. Seems to be needless penny pinching as I certainly would not buy a car without.

This thread is about updating the Garmin Navigon portable units used on the earlier Skoda Citigo (hence it is in the Citigo section) so I agree, you are talking at cross purposes to this thread. There are many other threads on this forum regarding updates to the Columbus system, so I suggest using the search function.

Scroll to the bottom of the download page and there is a bit entitled 'need help with installation' with a link to a PDF giving instructions to install. Here is a direct link... https://www.myvolkswagen.net/weatweb/feature-apps/nmu/assets/installationGuides/en/garminManual-en.pdf This is answered in the above PDF, max size is 4GB. If anyone runs this update I'd appreciate knowing how it went.

Is it not the case that used prices for all cars are 'plummeting' as demand drops due to the cost of living crisis? Last year used prices were daft for everything - at one stage WBAC / motorway were offering me £8,750 for our 6 year old Citigo - mainly due to lack of supply of new cars, so demand was high for nearly new used cars and this had a knock on effect to lower priced cars. I think a lot of people have put off getting a new car due to uncertainty over their cashflow for the next year or so. For those under 40, 10% inflation is a new and scary phenomenon and pay is not keeping pace so belts are being tightened. Mortgage rates have gone up and is shocking those who were forced to max out to buy, so a new car is unlikely. I suspect we will see a 'crisis' in many suppliers of big ticket items over the next 12 months.

Another point raised by my little trip out at the weekend. I was thinking I could charge at Hartshead Moor services, as something was telling me Applegreen had opened an 8 charger / 16 plug hub there recently, but could not find mention on the usual apps, so chose to charge early at Beverley. Today with some time on my hands I found the post about it and a link to the Applegreen charger map. They were operational and would have made an excellent stop. With low SoC and 180kW capable charger I would have been away in 10 minutes (or a bathroom break). I think this underlines how quickly things are moving now we have more players in the EV charging space and it is worth researching as much as possible before heading into an unfamiliar area. Link to Applegreen charger map

Talking about charging out and about. We also charged at Beverley MfG 100kW charger which is brand new (not on Zap-Map yet) where we briefly got 60kW before someone else plugged in to the other cable on the unit (2xCCS 1xChademo) and knocked speed down to 30kW. I'm assuming its a split charge system and I got a bum deal. As this was meant to be a quick top up to get home, I left as soon as I had enough with little buffer if things went badly. An hour or so later we needed a comfort break and I decided to get a splash and dash at Birch services. Three chargers and only one free, which I plugged into and was getting a measly 30kW but immediately a Mercedes EQE plugged in to the same charger and split the charge down to 15kW. So a 10 minute break added about 4kW. turns out a good decision as it rained and consumption increased and we got home with 3% remaining. My point is that unless implemented well, shared charging is ****e. I want to go topped up fast on the road and both these chargers were severely compromised by split charging. In the case of Birch, the charge was slow anyway before it was split in half. We need a lot more places like Washington I mentioned in my previous post so on route charging works for everyone. EDIT: I was also a bit ****ed at the EQE driver who has a 400 mile range capable car and plugged in to shared charger when they had 77% battery. Of course he may need every last electron to complete his journey and I'll never know.....

I used the new bank of chargers at Washington South services on the A1 yesterday. 6x350kW chargers that worked nicely. One was in use when we got there, by the time we had a comfort break there were 5 in use. Six chargers per services is probably a minimum now. for those interested I got 75kW with a cold battery and 25% SoC. Not lightening fast, but good enough.

Sounds like a thoroughly professional outfit I hope that hasn't taken to much shine off 'new car day' for you and also that it is sorted quickly and to your satisfaction.

How bad is the damage?

I agree, with the subscription price per kWh almost half that of Osprey, Instavolt, Applegreen et al. I don't charge much on the road, so no CPO subscription is worth it to me. However, we are driving to the South of France in September and Tesla look the cheapest with a subscription, which I can take for a single month. They are also the most numerous on the autoroutes now and ABRP shows I can make the trip purely using Tesla SC at about 42p / kWh.

Applegreen have burst on the scene also, installing hubs at Welcome Break services (same group) and now have HPC hubs at Abbington Services Gretna Services Hartshead Moor services Newark Services Sarn Park services (Bridgend) South Mimms https://driver.applegreenelectric.com/findCharger?53.6059337,-2.4951227,7z

5 Tesla SC locations have been opened to all since the original list was released Harrogate HG3 1EW Birmingham B10 0BW Carmarthen SA31 1GA Newport NP18 1HQ Romford RM1 3JT

I think they can up to 125kW but I'm not very sure about voltage. Here is the press release about the upgrades, which is about all I know. https://instavolt.co.uk/instavolt-announces-significant-upgrade-to-its-existing-charging-network/

The reason I popped onto this thread.... a new Osprey charging mini-hub for Inverness. This makes Inverness quite well served I believe.

Gridserve have implemented dual charging on almost all its chargers now. You can tell if a charger has it by the 'DUAL CHARGING AVAILABLE' sticker on the unit. Yes, some people have gotten irate about someone 'stealing' their charge but conversely it saves you waiting while some bozo charges to 100% but only drawing 10kW. This low rate of charge when dual charging is why Instavolt announced it was upgrading all it's older units (via software) to 250kW capable - which should be completed in April. However, its worth remembering when dual charging that the actual supply may be limited by legacy wiring and you may never get the headline speed.

According to the Electroverse app, they are Project-EV chargers and free to use. I find Electroverse more up to date than Zap-map.

Very useful @fatbelly. How are they managing in the current snowy conditions?

Thanks for the information, currently showing as £86.89 a corner at Costco, in my car's size. (your car is £30 a tyre cheaper!) I find the Goodyears do well in the tyre tests and were a contender on performance, so price is a factor now.

The tyre size is 185/55R15 given its a Monte Carlo. I had considered VREDESTEIN but they are more expensive than the Hankooks and do not fare as well in the tyre tests I've read. (Catskill do not list them in my size) You say these will last longer than the Hankooks, on what basis are you making that statement? My experience of Hankook shows they last quite well. TBH Longevity is not high on my priorities as the car only does 2-3K miles a year. Have you run Quatracs on your Citigo? How do they go? PS Thanks for the Catskill links, Hankooks are £20 cheaper there, although would need them fitted.

Hello Citigo hive mind! The tyres on my Citigo need replacing and I want to fit all season tyres. My current favourite is Hankook Kinergy 4S2 due to a combination of price, good reviews and my own recent good experience with Hankook tyres. My car takes 185/55R15 tyres My question is who has fitted all season tyres to a Citigo and how have you found them? Please give details of tyre/model/size and miles covered.

That would be hilarious fun!

This approach is also evident in VW group's MEB cars. Standard D mode aways allows the car to coast rather than brake via regen. Its very reminiscent of ECO mode on my old Karoq, which disengaged the engine and allowed coasting. I find D mode to be most economic on cross country trips, the B mode with immediate regen is too intrusive. However in urban areas B mode shines due to constant braking at roundabouts and junctions. B mode is also most economic in this type of driving.

Is it a local Merc dealer using that as a dumping ground for staff cars / domos? Passive/aggressive note on the windscreen? 🙂

Why can't they make basic small hatches that the vast majority want and can maybe afford? I don't really want a crossover / SUV, a medium sized estate would be great for the main car. For an 'entry level' car, why not make a Polo sized hatchback? The UP sized city car EVs sold / sell like hot cakes despite VW's best efforts to kill it off and second hand ones still command good prices. That is the small city EV they need to build as there is clearly demand. A Polo sized small car would be in demand also I think. ID.3 takes care of the Golf sized segment (even though they promise an EV golf in future). Cars need to get smaller.

6.6p per mile is still cheap motoring though. My home tariff is 22p and I'm getting 3.2 ish miles / kWh at the moment, so about 6.9p per mile. Compared with a similar diesel, which would be 16p / mile that's cheap. I can see EV costs going up, but still works out cheap compared to ICE. Yesterday I charged at a client's office for 8 hours @ 50p an hour. Worked out that I paid about 7p a kWh for what the car took, which is super cheap.